Chubby Streams - 5/14

Hey all. I've been very busy over the past couple months and want to get back to streaming regularly with contributions on TMD. I have a backlog of brews and want to stream some of them tonight, so here they are with brief descriptors of what I'm trying to accomplish with each deck.

Sideboard (15)

This deck is an updated version of a Karn PO list I played in the Waterbury. I had been working with JP Kohler, Jeremy Beaver, Vasu Balakrishnan, Danny Batterman, and others on the concept. In the end, JP Kohler ended up as the top seed at Waterbury (120 people) going into the top 8 with the deck, Vasu 5-0'ed a Vintage league on MTGO, certainly suggesting that the deck is legitmate in the current Vintage metagame. The tweaks with this version are 1 Tezz, AoB (Both JP and Jer were very high on the card and I believe them) and Erayo (Justin Gennari was running the card in his winning Esper list, and let's be honest, no one needs to twist my arm to get me to play Erayo...). I continue to tinker with the artifact count, trying to find the sweet spot for Opal, Thoughtcast, and PO, while making the deck less vulnerable to Null Rod. Speaking of Tinker, I am eschewing a lot of the most "powerful" win conditions in Vault/Key and Tinker + Robot. My hope is to make the deck more consistent.

Sideboard (15)

This is a different approach I have been meaning to try. A side effect of running Mishra's Baubles to reach a critical mass of Artifacts is that you are also have the potential to fuel the Delve spells. Once you are including those, it makes sense to incorporate Dack, Preordain, and the rest of the Blue Stew. This is also an opportunity to try an alternative SB strategy - with Karn and Dack, you have the potential to actually function as a control deck and not worry about casting Hurkyl's Recall to reset your opponent's board and clear the path for your POs. We'll have to see how it works. The SB Abrade is tech from Danny Batterman and the Blue Crabs Club as an answer to Kambal out of the Esper PO lists.

Sideboard (15)

Ah, the same Xerox core, with a different supporting cast. In many cases though, brewing requires you to work within the constraints of the existing format. The Delve - Cantrip engine has proven to be the premier Control strategy in Vintage since Khans block and I haven't found a strategy that has surpassed that (not for lack of trying, I assure you). This deck is a variant of my Jeskai Snap Control list, which was a variant of my Temur Gremlin Wranglers list - I plan on writing up a deck tech about that process tomorrow so I am going to wait to talk about this variant until then. In the mean time, I really want to get back to some good ol' fashioned Bolt, Snap, Bolt action.

Sideboard (15)

I have to admit, I missed Teferi initially until it started asserting itself in Standard as one of the best planeswalkers in the format (which includes Karn and Chandra). After that, I thought it had potential Vintage ramifications and couldn't wait to try it once I had time. The fact that Josh Lalo then top 8'd Waterbury with the card lends support to that idea. I don't have Josh's list but the initial shell I had in mind for Teferi was Landstill, as Jace, TMS 4 and 5. Except I'm not really a fan of Standstill in the current format - the metagame has become more permanent based and so it can be hard to find a board position in which to leverage Landstill. Turns out, Teferi works pretty well with Search for Azcanta as you can untap Azcanta with the +1 ability. I also wanted to try Field of Ruin in place of Wasteland. An issue I had with Wasteland in the metagame is that the tempo loss normally wasn't worth it. The deck has 5 4+ drops and Snapcaster Mages, so losing a land drops in the early game to wasteland your opponent also delayed your own planeswalkers for a turn. The card also mana fixes and effectively fuels the Delve spells and Azcanta (again, while not putting you down a land drop), while serving as an outlet for some of the colorless mana you get from Mana Drain. You lose some of the free wins you get from turn 1 Wastelands, but I have liked the upside in limited testing. If the rest of the deck looks familiar, I am using the permission and removal suite TakeYourT1me (Aaron Katz) runs. Of the decks I plan on running tonight, this is the one I am most curious about.

Conclusion

I plan to start streaming at 5:00 pm Eastern time. Comments or suggestions (and votes on what you want to see first), please respond below.

Look forward to watching the stream. Deck played insane all day at Waterbury for me. If I get time today I'll do a mini write up. Karn is the best card in the deck and don't know if I'll run less then 3 again.

However, your post needs to be edited. There is no such thing as "Temur." Budget format players might tolerate that kind of Orwellian Newspeak but here in Vintage-land, we recognize it for the farce it is.

Stream Summary:
3-2 with Grixis Xerox. I would snap cut a Nihil Spellbomb for a Tormod's Crypt in the SB. You want a Tormod's Crypt available to fetch with Demonic Tutor and not being able to do so cost us a match against Dredge.

3-2 with UW Teferi Control. Teferi was sweet but the shell needs work. Field of Ruin wasn't amazing and I think I would switch to UWR for access to Pyroblast and Dack Fayden. Search was good but 3 was too much.

5-0 with Esper Karnage. We ran hot and the deck felt super strong. I am not sure about Tezz or Erayo but both had their moments (and whatever the opposite of a moment is...)

2 people have complained about my use of Temur and neither of them was @The-Atog-Lord. I don't know if that is success or failure.

@chubbyrain Honestly, the thing I hate the most (and the most unfixable problem with the deck) is how hot and cold the deck runs. Sometimes, you're like "HURR DURR here's Karn->Outcomes", and other times you're "...I have cast 1 business spell, it got countered, I'm drawing nothing but mana".

One of the changes i've made which I like is cutting the Library of Alexandria for a maindeck Ancient Tomb. You just don't want to be playing a long game with the deck, so just having more ability to just slam Karn onto the table is great.

@chubbyrain If I bought back to vintage online, this really seems like a deck I'd buy into. It looks like a ton of fun. Has Erayo been impressive since your last comment? It sounded like at some point you weren't sure about that.